Self Conscious Narcissist

So I was at this NA meeting, Narcissists Anonymous, for those not familiar with the acronym.

There were eight of us there, going around the circle, standing up and giving the little spiel.

Before the lady next to me could get up, I jumped up, "Hi. My name is Jim. I am a narcissist."

"Hi Jim" One or two responded rather distractedly.

"It's been two hours since...Oh damnit..." then I sat back down.

Meanwhile, the lady next to me seemed very pissed off. She didn't even stand up, just leaned toward me, "You always do that! Just butt in when you're not wanted."

She did have a point. I felt very self conscious about that. Secretly, I have that form of narcissism where I'm easily thrown into panic when sensing the lack of approval. Profuse apologies then ensued from my side.

Slowly, her expression softened, "Well okay. But I get two turns now."


I was born under the sign of the daffodil. The botanists among you will know that flower by another name. Oh yes. So there isn't a whole lot I can do about that. For every bell curve illustrating psychological normalcy, there are the outliers, the minorities, without which there would be no curve. Normalcy would not exist.

There are no NA meetings that I am aware of, it's just a matter of what is tolerable in society, and what is not.

I've read the English translations of the ancient case studies on Echo and Narcissus. There isn't total consensus among the experts, but using my amazing skills I have come to certain conclusions.

Echo was cursed by one goddess for assisting a god. She probably shouldn't have done what she did, but we don't know her reasons, emotional and cultural. So we shouldn't think that we know.

Narcissus, on the other hand, was a self absorbed ass already, heart breaker and such. Yeah, there was a time when I was doing that too, leading the ladies along with hints and sly ... Enough of that.

What happened is he led the wrong person along and then spurned (him/her, the experts aren't agreed exactly who) but someone the gods listened to. So he was cursed by the gods.

Cursed by the gods is not good for psychological health. It's downright pathological. In the end, it worked out that Narcissus suffered his fate alone, sparing society.

I guess it comes down that healthy self respect is a good and necessary thing. Normal is a curve, a spectrum. People can be slightly on one side or the other without society being damaged. The people like me just have to be careful to be self conscious of our defect so as not to be so much of an ass to piss off the wrong people.

a reply to: pthena

Humorous, yet serious; interesting structure to your story, pthena. You're on a roll!

a reply to: Encia22

Getting back into the groove.

That two year break was so boring.
I got inspired from another thread.

I did stumble a bit the first couple of weeks though.
Live and learn.

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No. I'm lying.
My Granddaughter and I played through the latest Guild Wars 2 Expansion.
She's a Norn Ranger and I'm a human female Revenant. We work well together. She stands back with range support and I'm fighting right next to her pet in melee range.

Once we finished that she went to watching Youtube and I went back to Diablo II. After all these years I had never played all the way through without dying (hard core). I did it finally, with a Sorceress equipped with two Dream Runewords, Fire embued sword, and a Merc equipped with Infinity polearm. Maxed out Lightening and Fire.

I did it hardcore all the way thru Normal, Nightmare, and Hell.

So no. Not really bored.

a reply to: pthena

Love thy neighbor like thyself...

Only narcissist go to heaven

a reply to: Terpene

Heaven's a very lofty subject.
Time was
I could see Jupiter and Mars with the naked eye.
Oh! And the Milky Way!
You just haven't seen it unless
you seen it 50 years ago.

I can just barely make out Orion now
Venus is a given.
Eye sight
Light pollution.

Now days I'm rather Earth bound
feet on the ground.
I do have neighbors still.

They are so close
that I can see them
with or without glasses.

Night Sight

a reply to: pthena

If you don't take subtle hints, and start your self doubt spiral, you'll be labeled as narcissist.
Subtle hints are a sign of weak arguments....

If you defend your position with arguments that can't be refuted you'll be labeled as narcissist.

I'm very sorry for those that aren't narcissistic.
For them love is always a dependency, and not an abundance...


Great picture!
Did you take the shot?
When I was in the middle of Madagascar, doing charity work as a young adult, I was flabbergasted as to how beautiful the night sky could look.
one night there was a huge meteorite that lit the whole area when burning up, i was there with a girl I tried to hook up for a week already and sure that thing was heaven sent...

Around here if you're not standing close to a light source you can still see all of the mentioned.

a reply to: pthena

I feel a majority are on a narcissism spectrum.

I am fairly sure I take over 90% of threads to insert a personal anecdote, humor, or self-absorbed reflection. Just like I just did. And then I'll feel bad for my cult of self and try to hit myself with a rock to be safe.

In fact, I think a narcissistic comment about narcissism may cause a feedback loop of compounding self-obsession. Not sure.

Narcissus, even if lacking an ability to establish an objective view of himself, can at least still check out The 48 Laws of Power.

a reply to: Terpene

The labelling, that's why I started the thread. People on the forum throwing out categories of scum of the Earth "Murderers, Narcissists, Human Traffickers, and all the other bad things in the World."

I put the credit for the photo under the photo, I used to take the effort to respect copyright. I'm getting lazy about that these days though.

a reply to: Degradation33

In fact, I think a narcissistic comment about narcissism may cause a feedback loop of compounding self-obsession.

Seems therapeutic to me.

I am fairly sure I take over 90% of threads to insert a personal anecdote, humor, or self-absorbed reflection. Just like I just did. And then I'll feel bad for my cult of self and try to hit myself with a rock to be safe.

Yeah, about 90% for me too.
"This one time I..."
"So I was ..."

It's kind of like saying "Me too" but yeah, out of context some times.

It's like "I'm too lazy to start my own thread, so I'll just take a word from the OP and go off on my own tangent with it."

I'm shocked! Shocked! That more of my posts haven't been deleted for thread drift.
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Is there a subtle hint that I should look up The 48 Laws of Power?

a reply to: pthena

It's an investing book. Like a guidebook for the proper will to power. I feel a self-obsessed narcissist would benefit from the completely selfish application of temperance.

It's like "I'm too lazy to start my own thread, so I'll just take a word from the OP and go off on my own tangent with it."

That's pretty much every wordy, sometimes pedantic, post I make.

End up ranting about something completely derailed from the topic and then try to pull it back in to be almost relevant again..

And that's why I think _____ applies to _____ in a way I'm sure exists.

And then edit it 15 times to better admire the glory that is my vacuous crap.

a reply to: Degradation33

So my daughter's brother read a book, judging by the date, right after publication. I think it was assigned for a college class. He did give me a verbal bullet point summary, but I don't remember.

THE WISDOM OF PSYCHOPATHS - KEVIN DUTTON
Kind of how the great achievers score high on the psychopath scale.
There's an interview with the author.

It's over an hour long, but there are lines on the scroll bar kind of like chapter markers.
13:21 is decoupling emotion from behavior.

A google search may also list magazine and newspaper reviews.

Scary how he talks about the spectrum just like I talk about Narcissism spectrum.

And then edit it 15 times to better admire the glory that is my vacuous crap.

So my ex-son in law (landlord), commented today, "You sure are laughing alot since getting back on the forum"

Yeah. I'm laughing almost constantly, "Oh, the cleverness that is me!"

People reading my posts would be shocked, thinking me an absolute madman. That's why I keep it all hush hush, don't want to lessen my credibility.

a reply to: Degradation33 & a to: pthena

Personally I prefer it a lot if people talk in 'I-sentences' and not in 'you-sentences', because I feel the I is sincere the you is mostly unnecessary assumptions and false.

That's not really narcissistic, I think. That is truthful.

In that spirit:
Not going to lie, pthena, this freaked me out a lot yesterday. lol
Didn't the old Greeks have a greeting like, may the gods ignore you, or sthg like that?
Once they take an interest in you, things get messy.
I am very uncomfortable with pathological, psychologically difficult sure, but pathological? No.

a reply to: Peeple

Didn't the old Greeks have a greeting like, may the gods ignore you, or sthg like that?

There's got to be. It is better to go unnoticed.
Hubris is a good word to look up on Wikipedia though.

I found this Taylor Swift song on the same search page as the Peter Pan quote.

It's a tribute to her Grandmother, with good maxims.

Maybe I shouldn't have posted this.
I feel a hole in me because there was no one in my life that I thought of in those terms, a parent figure respected for wisdom.

My mom died when I was 14. I can't recall any wisdom. My dad taught me not to lie, the hard way, then I found out that he lied about me having an older sister from a previous marriage that went from "that's a lie" to "that's none of your GD business" to "hey here's your sister".

And my step mom was so busy treating me like I was all wise and didn't have anything to add.

Now I'm wondering if I turned to God for something missing. He was like "sure, welcome"

Then I assumed He was the Christian God. Learned Theology. Got all the way to being a preaching elder. I was setting a liberal Christian congregation back to the fundamentals of Christianity ala Nicene Creed.

A couple of miracles not related to what I was teaching at all. A couple of members mistook it as a sign to follow me.

There was no crisis of faith actually, because the welcoming of the God spirit had never been conditioned on doctrine, not even the death and resurrection of Jesus.

The crisis was of conscience and duty. Conscience because how could I teach something I didn't believe without being a liar. Duty, because these people had put their trust in me. But the miracles were due to the people themselves and their commitment to each other. They didn't need me for anything. So I fled with a clear conscience.

Years before, I had read a book by Bishop Robinson called Honest to God, Honest about God.

So I asked God if I could be an Atheist.
He said "Sure"
But I was still not convinced.

a reply to: pthena

My favourite mythological figure is Psyche the one Eros himself fell in love with.

I mean it is not all bad when the small-g's notice you lol
...you might get butterfly wings

a reply to: Peeple

Her sisters didn't get noticed when they jumped. Woops.

I've never read the Golden Ass, it seems kind of like Chaucer's Canterberry Tales in outline. I have read "Till We Have Faces" by C.S. Lewis focused on her sister Orual.

a reply to: pthena

NA!!! Never Another

a reply to: pthena

Usually if one plays right along with the mind games and shows some proficiency then we move from narcissist to sociopath, and finally if you give them the finger, to psychopath...
As soon as you make it clear that peer pressure has absolutely no effect on you, those are the last straws to clutch before the nareative fails...

a reply to: JJproductions

The Acronym thread
Therapeutic.
It hasn't popped up on my myATS page, must not be active.

Acronyms bother me alot. 75% of the time, I have to look them up.
I don't remember if you played there.

a reply to: Terpene

I can't completely relate to that. People don't usually accuse me of those things. I accuse myself.

I don't know the culture of Europe.

When it comes to accusations though, I've been accused of being Satan, or at least one of his minions.

So when I was an unlicensed tile contractor, my high talented tile setter was a member of a Charismatic Prosperity Gospel Church. His wife, hard core. I suspect she was constantly telling him how utterly evil I was.

We were working and he sort of non nonchalantly asks "You're pretty smart aren't you?"

"Yeah, pretty much" I replied

"Well you know" he continued "Satan is too."

I was sort of puzzled then as to why such a topic would sort of pop up out of the blue, "Is there something you'd like to tell me?"

"There's a Bible verse that says '[...]' I don't know where it is but you [...] How do you explain that?"

So I said "Go get your Bible" so he went out to his truck and got it.

I then took his Bible, turned to the verse and said "If you read this passage in context; here, I'll read this whole section here. [ ...... ]

"Now you see how [...] is contrasted with [...], therefore the actual meaning of that verse is the opposite of what you are suggesting."

"You! You! They were right! You twist things all around. You are Satanic!"

"But you do see that in context, it doesn't mean what they say it means, don't you?" I asked in my most reasonable voice.

Rather agitatedly he replied "You aren't just a smart ass ... (huff huff huff) you're a smart asshole."

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Something like that? But with cultural variations?